SUNDAY 9 September 2001:
The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) met on 7 and 8 September, in Montevideo,
Uruguay. The attending GAC Members, representing 29 national governments,
distinct economies as recognised in international fora and multinational
governmental and treaty organisations had useful discussions relating
to the Internet. They issued the following statement.

Vice
Chair Positions

The GAC is pleased to announce
the election of its inaugural Vice Chairs:

Mr Len St. Aubin, Canada

Mr Sharil Tarmizi, Malaysia

Mr Christopher Wilkinson,
European Commission

Outreach
Activities

Progressing outreach activities
is a high priority for the GAC. It will be developing a work program
to encourage greater participation in GAC meetings which includes current
members playing a more proactive role in raising awareness of the ICANN
and the GAC in their respective regions. The GAC has developed an Outreach
document to assist with these activities.

Since Stockholm, members
have initiated many outreach activities through bilateral and multi-lateral
presentations and discussions.

ICANN
Board

The GAC had a constructive,
open and useful dialogue with the ICANN Board and staff.

IDNs

The GAC welcomes the Report
of the Internationalized Domain Names Internal Working Group of the
ICANN Board of Directors, particularly the Working Group's recognition
of the importance of the three key policy areas identified by the GAC
in its Melbourne communiqué on this issue. Those being:

the essential importance
of interoperability of the present and future Internet;

the prevention of cybersquatting
and resolution of disputes in the IDNs environments should be addressed
by appropriate means and processes such as an appropriate dispute
resolution policy and implementation of sunrise periods; and

the application of competition
and market access, consumer protection and intellectual property principles.

The GAC also recalls the
recommendation on IDNS in the opinion issued with its communiqué
dated 16 November 2000, that: "ICANN, to the extent of its powers,
provide relevant governments and distinct economies as recognised in
international fora with an opportunity to participate in the development
of policy in relation to the implementation of multilingual DNS access
to domain names using non-ASCII character sets or letters which apply
to a relevant country's culture".

The GAC supports the establishment
of a steering committee, with representation from the GAC, to oversee
further work on this issue.

The GAC would also like to
advise ICANN that, in addition to the key policy areas identified in
the Melbourne communiqué, the steering committee should be mindful
of the wider cultural and social context of the work to be carried out.
The GAC strongly supports the recommendation to form panels of volunteer
experts from different countries and distinct economies in a diversity
of fields as this would facilitate taking into account various cultures.

ALSC

The GAC thanks the Chair
of the ALSC for his presentation. The draft report of the At-Large Membership
Committee is welcomed and the GAC encourages interested parties to respond
to the report.

GAC
Principles

The GAC appreciates that
ICANN is using the GAC Principles for the Delegation and Administration
of Country Code Top Level Domains as a useful guide in matters associated
with agreements between ICANN and ccTLDs.

IPv6

The GAC invites ICANN to
make further information available at the next meeting about IP version
6 deployment issues, including address assignment policies and infrastructure
readiness, such as root server resolution.

WIPO Report

The GAC thanks WIPO for its
recent final report on the WIPO (II) Process and noted that it will
be discussed by the Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO at the end
of September 2001.

New
TLDs

1.
Evaluation of new gTLDs

The GAC welcomed the creation
of the ICANN Board New TLD Evaluation Process Planning Task Force on
the evaluation of the new gTLDs and received a report from the representative
of the UK in the GAC.

The GAC confirmed the importance
of public policy considerations in the selection and implementation
of new gTLDs, and asked its representative to continue to participate
in the work of the group and maintain liaison with other GAC members.

2.
Two letter codes and .aero

The GAC confirmed the importance
of minimising confusion for the user.

Regarding the possible use
of alpha-2 letter codes as second level domains, the GAC noted that
the WIPO (II) Report addresses this question and recommends that:

"293. If ISO 3166
alpha-2 country code elements are to be registered as domain names
in the gTLDs, it is recommended that this be done in a manner that
minimises the potential for confusion with the ccTLDs."

The GAC received a presentation
from SITA regarding the eventual use of two letter codes representing
airlines in the .aero gTLD. The GAC concluded that in view of the clearly
specific context identified by the .aero TLD, the potential for confusion
could be appropriately minimised provided that SITA made public a disclaimer
confirming that there was no relationship between the two letter airline
codes and the ISO 3166 codes.

The GAC appreciates the spirit
of consultation shown by SITA and the ISO Maintenance Service Agency.

Geographical
and geopolitical concepts in relation to gTLDs

The GAC continued its discussions
initiated in Marina del Rey, November 2000 on the use of geographical
and geopolitical concepts, particularly as second level identifiers.
The GAC confirmed that this is an issue of considerable political importance
and complexity that merits thorough study by qualified and competent
experts. The issue also relates to the overall taxonomy of the DNS and
its evolution concerning the expansion of the TLD space. The GAC recalls
its communiqué from Marina del Rey, November 2000 to the effect
that WIPO member states had asked WIPO to consider and make recommendations
in this area.

The GAC notes the WIPO Report's
recommendations concerning the registration of geographical and geopolitical
concepts. The GAC looks forward to further consideration of the subject
matter by the WIPO Member States, in particular with regard to the possible
need for new international rules in this area.

Meanwhile the GAC considered
the situation arising from the current pre-registration of country names
in the .info "sunrise period" that had been drawn to its attention
by ICANN.

The GAC notes that the issue
of geographical and geopolitical names is very complex and the subject
of ongoing international discussion. Without prejudice to any future
discussions, general policy or international rules in this area, and
considering the very special nature of .info, and problems that have
become apparent with the registration of such names in the sunrise period,
the GAC agreed that interim ad hoc measures should be taken by ICANN
and the Registries to prevent avoidable conflicts in .info. The GAC
agreed that the use of names of countries and distinct economies as
recognised in international fora as second level domains in the .info
TLD should be at the discretion of the respective governments and public
authorities.

Therefore the GAC recommends
that the names of countries and distinct economies, particularly those
contained in the ISO 3166-1 standard, as applied by ICANN in identifying
ccTLDs, should be reserved by the .info Registry, (or if registered
in the Sunrise Period challenged by the Registry and, if successful,
then reserved) in Latin characters in their official language(s) and
in English and assigned to the corresponding governments and public
authorities, at their request, for use. These names in other IDN character
sets should be reserved in the same way as soon as they become available.

The GAC also draws the attention
of ICANN and the Registries to the fact that a large number of other
names, including administrative sub-divisions of countries and distinct
economies as recognised in international fora , may give rise to contested
registrations. Accordingly the GAC recommends that Registrars and eventual
Registrants should be made aware of this.

ccTLD
Constituency

The GAC thanks the representatives
of the ccTLD Constituency for their participation and welcomed the opportunity
for discussion on matters associated with their proposed formation of
the Country Code Supporting Organisation.

Whois

The GAC also thanks the DNSO's
Whois Committee for their presentation on the outcomes of the DNSO Whois
Survey.

The GAC warmly thanks the
Government of Uruguay and the sponsors for hosting its meeting.

The next face-to-face meeting
of the GAC will be held in November 2001 in Marina Del Rey to coincide
with ICANN's next round of meetings.

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